Cheryl St. John

by The Mistaken Widow

  “Ya know I ain’t really surprised?” she said. “I had a horrible feeling about all of it—her marryin’ him, all of it. I knew nothin’ good was gonna come of it. She went and got herself killed.”

  “The train crash was an accident, Mrs. Patrick. It was a terrible thing, and many lives were lost, but it was just an accident. No one had any control over it or knew it would happen.”

  “Don’t call me that, I said. Pattie was a no-account son of a bitch, and I’d like to forget he ever existed.”

  “I’m sorry. Celia. And I’m sorry about Claire. She was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Really.”

  Celia’s face scrunched up and her shoulders shook for several heart-stopping moments. It was a wonder how this woman had produced a daughter like Claire. Sarah considered whether or not to cross over and put her arms around her, but Celia’s face and back straightened before she could decide.

  “I wasn’t cut out to be no grandmother, anyhow,” she said, her voice low-pitched, and Sarah couldn’t argue with that one. “Wasn’t cut out to be no mother, neither. But Claire woulda been a good mother.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “She took care of me, she did.” She teared up again and blubbered into her liquor. “Who’s gonna take care of me now?”

  Sarah stared at her in shock. Her meal ticket was gone! Was that all she thought of her daughter? And now she cried over who would take care of her—meaning supply the money for her indulgence. She bit her tongue. And thought

  For nearly half an hour, Celia swung between bouts of tears and self-pity and feeble anger. Celia’s behavior wasn’t a one-time thing, she concluded She was a drunk, pure and simple, and until Claire had married Stephen, she’d taken care of her as best she could.

  The tears Sarah had mistaken for tears of grief were tears of self-pity. All Celia cared about was where her next bottle came from. Maybe somewhere inside was a lovable person, for Claire had loved her, but her lifetime relationship with the bottle had destroyed that woman somewhere.

  Celia was exactly what Nicholas believed Sarah herself was. And Sarah was going to help hide it from him.

  “Well,” she said, finally knowing how to reach her. “I can take care of you as long as I’m here.”

  Celia blinked up at her.

  “As long as they think I’m Claire, they’ll think it’s normal for me take care of you.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”

  Sarah hated herself for adding more deception to the already staggering amount she’d amassed. But what were a few more weeks added on?

  “You mean I could stay here?” Bleary-eyed, she glanced around the room.

  It had to be the grandest place the woman had ever seen—not to mention the food was excellent and the liquor free. “For a while, anyway,” Sarah replied. “As long as they think I’m Claire.”

  “That’ll be a stretch, for sure,” Celia said, looking her over.

  Sarah held her ground and met her eyes.

  “But not impossible.”

  “You’ll stay up here when you’re drinking,” she said, laying out the conditions. “Which will obviously be the greater percentage of your time.”

  Celia snorted.

  “You very nearly killed one of the servants down there, you humiliated the Hallidays in front of important business clients and you made a fool of yourself. You will stay in this room unless I say you can go downstairs or out If you stop drinking, however, that’s a different story.”

  Celia leaned her head back and looked at Sarah through half-slitted eyes. “You know, maybe it won’t be so hard to pretend you’re Claire, after all.”

  After saying that, her chin quivered. “That girl loved me, she did.”

  “Do we have an understanding, then?”

  “You’re Claire. I stay right here until you let me out, sweetie.”

  Could she trust her to stay put? “You go out there,” she said, pointing to the door, “and let it slip, and we’ll both be kicked out of here. Maybe you can go back to where you came from, but I can’t. It doesn’t appear to me you could hold a job, so you’d just better stay put.”

  “I’m a drunk, sweetie, not an idiot. I’ll stay here and have my own private party. I do like to read the newspaper. Could I get papers, do ya think?”

  “I’ll see that the papers are sent up each day after Mr. Halliday reads them. I believe he receives several. They should keep you busy.”

  “What about—you know—them?”

  “The Hallidays?” Sarah’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of facing them. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll apologize.”

  “Act real ashamed of me. That always gets ’em.”

  Sarah turned away. As if Claire had ever had to act! What the poor girl must have gone through she could only imagine. Sarah had always felt robbed of a mother, especially after learning to know and love Leda, but having a mother like Celia would be…exceedingly difficult, to say the least. “I left biscuits and jam here for you. Eat them and drink the coffee. I’ll have fresh tea sent up.”

  “See what kinda booze the rich people stock, will ya? I might as well drink in style, too.”

  Sarah eyeballed her with disgust and left the room.

  Gruver was sweeping dirt and rock from the foyer floor when she descended the stairs. He’d already hauled away the pieces of the broken crock. He looked up, and an expression of empathy crossed his features.

  Sarah stepped closer and studied the cracked and broken floor tiles with a sick feeling in her stomach. “How many of them are ruined?”

  “Looks like five. Mrs. Pratt said these were imported from Italy back when the old Mr. Halliday had the house built.”

  She caught herself biting her lip. “I wonder if they’ll be replaceable?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “What about the pot?”

  “That was something Mrs. Halliday brought back from a trip to India.”

  “Oh, great.” She wrung her hands. “Gruver?”

  He looked up.

  “I’m going to need your help.”

  “Anything, ma’am.”

  “Celia—don’t call her Mrs. Patrick by the way—mustn’t be allowed out of her room unless I’m with her. I can’t take the chance of anything like this happening again—or something worse next time.”

  “I’ll alert the staff,” he said in understanding. “We’ll take turns seeing that she’s kept out of the way.”

  “Thank you. Has tea been served to the guests?”

  He affirmed that it had.

  “All right. See to it the new help knows the procedure for preparing the guests’ rooms for night, and that it’s taken care of before they retire.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Ma’am?”

  “Yes, Gruver?”

  “His bark is worse than his bite, Mr. Halliday’s, and just you keep in mind he’s an honorable man. He always does the right thing.”

  The right thing in this case would be to toss her out on her ear, and her baby with her. That drunken woman upstairs had more right to be here than she did; she was Claire’s real mother, after all. “I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

  Somehow, she had to save Nicholas’s reputation with his friends and clients. She smoothed her skirts and paused in the servants’ hall to check her hair in the mirror. Her curly mop was hopeless as usual, a few tresses wilder than normal, but nothing she could fix without going to her room and starting over. Her cheeks didn’t need pinching. She looked as though she’d stood in the sun all day.

  Resigned, Sarah straightened her shoulders, ignored the throbbing at her temples and in her leg and headed for the formal parlor.

  Nicholas refilled the men’s brandy snifters and motioned for Mrs. Pratt to freshen the ladies’ tea. Jane Marie McCaul had accepted a glass of sherry, but declined a refill.

  The conversation had been stilted since the fiasco in the foyer. He burned with ire at the scene Claire’s mother had created in front of
his guests, and hadn’t done much himself to improve the atmosphere. Mother, bless her, had valiantly apologized and moved them into the parlor.

  Kathryn and Jane Marie discussed a play they’d seen in London the season before. Nicholas observed his guests moodily, wishing he could charge up those stairs, jerk those women from whatever they were doing and set them straight.

  He’d expected nothing better from someone who came from Slay Street. But he’d expected Claire to keep her seedy background and her lush of a mother from his guests. She’d known what could happen, and she should have been prepared. If she’d alerted him or the servants, they could have prevented the calamity.

  The thought of tearing up those stairs and giving her a piece of his mind struck him more than once.

  Leaning against the mantel, he sipped his brandy. From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement and turned his head.

  Claire entered the room with a swish of black satin, her limp more pronounced than usual as the evening grew long. Her cheeks were flushed a becoming rosy shade, and she appeared breathlessly lovely, as though she’d just danced a waltz instead of dealing with a drunken mother.

  Having the guts to show herself to his guests, to him, was more than he’d anticipated. Nicholas fought the spark of admiration that flickered.

  One by one, the others tried not to make an issue of her arrival, but gave up and glanced uncomfortably from one Halliday to the other.

  Leda started to stand and go to her, but Claire halted her with the palm of her hand and a soft command. All eyes focused on Claire.

  “I’d like to take responsibility for what happened earlier,” she said, her voice a little quavery. “I’m quite embarrassed. I don’t wish for my mother’s behavior to reflect on Nicholas in any way. He had no idea that she has a drinking problem.”

  She glanced solicitously toward him, and he continued to stare.

  “I won’t apologize for her. She’s been that way, well, for a long time. Since my—father died. But I apologize for my lack of responsibility, and the fact that I should have taken better care. I know Mrs. Gruver could have been seriously hurt or killed.” Her voice cracked on that word. “I can assure you that the rest of your stay will not be interrupted with any further unpleasantness.”

  She looked at Leda. “Nicholas and Mrs. Halliday have been nothing but kind and gracious to me and my son. I owe them a great deal, and I’m sorry to have let them down.”

  Her voice had grown soft. Those enormous blue eyes turned directly to him. “I hope you all can find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

  Nothing could have taken the wind out of his sails faster. He detested being caught off guard. He hated not being in control of a situation. And this one was totally in her hands. She’d just won the hearts and the sympathy of each person in the room with her sincere voice and those big watery eyes.

  It was damned near impossible to resist a plaintive appeal like that.

  He’d appear the heel if he drew out her anguish. Oh, she was a sly one: confront him before all these people so he couldn’t rant and rave as he desired. The words and the fury boiled deep inside him.

  And admitting her transgression right out loud to everyone concerned! Refusing to accept responsibility for her mother’s problem, but assuming liability for the woman herself. Clever.

  Milos cleared his throat, an obvious call to action on Nicholas’s part.

  Leda did get up then, and rush over to enfold her daughter-in-law into her cushioned embrace. “We’re going to forget all about it, aren’t we?” she said, hooking her arm around Claire’s waist and leading her forward. She ran a persuasive eye over each of the guests.

  They nodded and made appropriate sounds of agreement.

  His mother’s intent gaze fixed on him, and Nicholas knew he’d been bested. He gave a curt nod.

  Leda beamed and urged Claire to sit on the love seat beside her. Claire arranged her skirts, and slanted him a dubious glance. She knew it wasn’t settled with him. But she’d gracefully saved face for all concerned.

  “Mrs. Pratt, will you have Mrs. Trent bring William down to meet our guests now?” Leda turned from instructing the servant to speak to Kathryn. “Just wait until you see our precious boy. He and Claire have brightened the Halliday house. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  Once Mrs. Trent brought William, the women gathered around him and spoke in silly voices and oohed and aahed. The men drew off to one side, and a discussion of shipping prices ensued.

  Ellen Gallamore spilled tea on her skirt, and Claire hurried to bring a damp cloth. Nicholas trapped her as she returned it to a tray in the hallway.

  “We are not finished discussing what happened by any means,” he said, grasping her wrist.

  She brought her startled blue gaze to his face, the high color draining from her cheeks. Her attention deliberately dropped to his mouth, and he could have sworn the pulse under his fingers leaped. “All right,” she said. “Would you like me to come to your study later?”

  “I have no idea how late the others will remain up,” he said. “My study is open to the men at all hours.”

  One pale brow rose in question.

  “I’ll come to your room. Wait up for me.”

  She nodded her consent. Her gaze dropped away.

  Nicholas released her wrist and she hurried back into the room.

  He would have to be careful not to touch her like that. Not to get close enough to see the fire in her eyes or smell the arousing scent of her skin and hair.

  Even when he was angry with her, even after she’d allowed her mother to humiliate him, even though he saw through her manipulations, she set him on fire. Allowing himself to weaken would be a terrible mistake.

  Yes. He would have to be careful.

  Chapter Eleven

  After a day’s work and an evening of entertaining, Nicholas grew ready to call it a night long before his gentlemen guests. They finally left him and headed upstairs, and he threw open the drapes and the remainder of the study windows to air the now stuffy room.

  The men would be traveling to Youngstown with him in the morning, and daybreak would come all too soon. He climbed the stairs, determined to take Claire to task without further endangering his resolve.

  Carrying a large envelope, he tapped lightly on her door. Mrs. Trent and the baby would be sleeping. She opened the portal immediately and stepped back.

  Nicholas strode into the room, which smelled like her, and cursed himself for coming to her on her ground.

  No! He pulled his thoughts together. There was no “her ground” here. This was his home, every inch of it! She had only as much as he allowed her.

  Guiltily, he walked forward. She was Stephen’s wife. She had as much right to the house as he did. He only bolstered his flagging confidence by telling himself otherwise.

  “Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.

  He turned. Her pale face revealed her weariness. She lowered her gaze to the envelope as he replied, “No.”

  She sank into one of the wing chairs and raised her foot to the upholstered stool.

  He glanced down. She wore both shoes. He hadn’t paid attention until now. “You got the cast off.”

  “The other day.”

  He could see her stockings above her shoes, one ankle visibly larger than the other. “Your foot. It’s swollen.”

  “It does that after being on it all day.”

  “You should have removed your shoes.”

  “I knew you were coming.”

  He’d told her to wait up, and of course she hadn’t undressed. He felt like an absolute beast. He set the packet of papers aside, leaned over to unlace her soft-soled shoe and raised her foot. She drew in a breath.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head, her lips in a strained line.

  He removed the slipper, gently lowered her foot to the cushion and did the same to the other. “You should have put some ice on it.”

  “I sent the
servants to bed. They have to be up early.”

  He thought of the melting ice in the silver bucket in his study. “I’ll be right back.”

  He returned with the bucket, poured ice into a towel and wrapped it around her ankle. “Better?”

  She had closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Let’s talk about what you came to discuss.”

  Of course. She needed to sleep. “It can wait,” he decided.

  Her eyes flew open. “You had me wait up, and now you say it can wait?”

  “We’re both tired, Claire. Perhaps it would be better if we talked another time.” That smoky hint of gray in her eyes concealed deep emotion. He wondered what thoughts dwelled behind those eyes. “I kept my promise.”

  Warily, she took stock of the envelope on the table.

  “The papers you wanted,” he clarified.

  She didn’t make a move.

  He picked up the envelope and tossed it in her lap.

  Finally, she looked up. “Thank you.”

  She could barely keep her eyes open. She’d probably checked on her mother, fed William and sent the servants to bed all since he’d seen her last. And then she’d waited for him to come rant at her.

  “Lean forward.”

  She eyed him uncertainly, but complied.

  He slipped one arm behind her and another beneath her legs, and her scent assailed him as he picked her up. A little floral, a little earthy. A lot woman. Dangerous.

  He placed her on the bed and stepped back, his seditious body already responding. “Go to sleep.”

  Abruptly, he turned and left her room.

  Sarah removed the ice from her foot, opened the unsealed envelope and slid the papers onto the bed. All the facts of Claire’s life lay before her, some scrawled in spiky longhand, others printed neatly. Of course he’d hired the Pinkerton Agency, nothing less for Nicholas Halliday, so the information had been recorded with detailed accuracy and a list of sources.

  Claire’s limited schooling, her friends, her parents, all the details of her brief life were described on the pages. Celia drank before her husband died. Theirs had been a rough and rocky marriage. Claire had had a brother who had been killed in a street brawl.

  Struggling to keep her eyes open, Sarah read of three men with whom Claire had kept intimate company before she’d met Stephen. Perhaps those men had been the reason Nicholas questioned Claire’s motives where his brother was concerned. But Nicholas couldn’t know of her love for Stephen. He’d never observed them together.